All I want for the Holidays is my…

Year end is always a busy crazy time.

On one hand there are long lists of typical business year end activities that are critical and time sensitive. On the other hand there are all of the personal and family holiday to-do’s that we trying carve out time to enjoy in between all of the aforementioned ‘hustle and bustle.’

When we are busy and have an impossibly full plate that includes deadlines and a seemingly never ending list of ‘to-do’s’ we sometimes think we can ‘cheat’ our mental, emotional and physical systems and keep pushing ourselves. However it is wise to keep in mind that:

Downtime is not a luxury—it is a vital requirement of mental, emotional, and physical health.

We all have our own version of what re-energizing downtime looks like.

Your personal “Re-Energize” report at www.imapMyTeam.com®, helps you do just that!

When you are getting ready to plan your holiday downtime read this report and incorporate some of the suggestions and tips into your plans. The benefit to you will be enormous in the form of reduced stress, a feeling of renewal and batteries that are recharged.

Make the most of your time away whether you have two days or two weeks to celebrate the holidays.

Happy Holidays to all.

Performance Encouragement

Over the last two weeks our Tuesday Tips have been focused on finishing the year strong.  And as we head into the holiday season it’s important to remember this time of year affords us all the opportunity to finish well by encouraging and building up others. After all the spirit of the holidays is to be filled with good cheer.

Business end of year to-do lists, often include conducting or participating in performance management discussions.  These discussions can play an important organizational role in understanding what went well, what didn’t go so well, and sets the direction for future success. The conversations tend to combine what can be a rigorous look back with setting expectations for the future. In many organizations even when things are going great, these discussions are not something leaders or employees look forward to. The truth is the performance management reviews are the perfect opportunity for the participants to offer encouragement to each other.

Consider the importance of encouragement described by Leadership expert and author John C Maxwell:

“If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it”

It’s important to point out that it doesn’t matter if you are a leader or team member, the way we talk and interact with each other matters and finding opportunities to do so in encouraging ways will likely have a positive impact.

Individual and/or team success requires a certain level of motivation and an appropriate type of encouragement.  The more people receive the kind of support they need along the way, the easier it is for them to stay focused on the task or journey and see it through to completion.

The various reports available to you in imapMyTeam® are your key to understanding just the right way to encourage others when they need it most.  Refer to the attached grid to see the best way to encourage your employees or teammates. Identify what quadrant their circle symbol falls in and then frame your encouragement accordingly.

Make it your goal this holiday season, whether at work or with family and good friends to have a positive impact by encouraging others.

You Finish Strong

Last week’s Tuesday Tip helped get you focused on leading or participating in the best meetings possible to end the year strong. Today’s tip will continue on that theme but from a personal level.  This is a very practical exercise that will help you make sure you end the year with everything wrapped up and ready for the New Year.

Go to imapMyTeam.com, log in and then please run your Getting Things Done Snapshot. It is a 2 page “at-a-glance” report that can be found using the drop down menu under your personal reports section in the center of your home page.

The first snapshot page concisely describes three strength characteristics that define how you typically move something from decision to completion.

•                  Your  process of making a decision
•                      The speed at which you implement those decisions once made, and
•                      How you work all of the various To-Do’s you have on your plate.

You will see a diamond symbol on a gray bar (that symbol can be located anywhere on that continuum).

The further left or right the symbol is printed on that continuum, the more your strength will mirror the description that is written to the corresponding left or right hand side. If your symbol is located towards the middle of that continuum then your strengths are more of a balance of the left and right hand side.

The second snapshot page succinctly describes three conditions that you expect and are personally important for you to use your strengths from page 1.

•          How much time you prefer to think about a decision
•          How you keep yourself physically ‘recharged’, and
•          How to stay on top of your To-Do list.

The symbols and bars on the second page work as the first page in terms of intensity or balance.

It is a quick but powerful exercise, to compare this report with colleagues that you are working with. Page 2 is the fuel that gets you to the finish line. It is important information for me to understand about you and vice versa.

It is not uncommon for people to have opposite intensity on the two pages. For instance, being decisive in most circumstances; but needing time to think and perhaps slowing down decisions in other cases. When those opposite intensities are present in any of the three areas it is even more important to talk that out with your manager, peer or direct report because this is where they may not realize how personally important that need is to you.

As you work hard to bring 2015 to a successful close, you can depend on imapMyTeam to give you the insight you need stay on track so You Finish Strong!

Finish Strong!

WOW. Did it kick in Sunday night as you brushed your teeth before bed? Perhaps Monday morning in the shower, getting ready for work? Possibly it was delayed ever so slightly to this morning as the calendar actually turned December 1^st. WOW.

Wasn’t I just on summer vacation? It was just Labor Day weekend wasn’t it? I’ve got a ton of things to accomplish before the end of the year. Time is flying by to get everything done in time.

Yes there is less than one month of 2015 and I’m willing to bet you are going to be in a lot of meetings between now and year end to prioritize what needs to get done by year end.

Make these end of the year meetings your best ones yet.

To ensure that you make the most of the last few days, manage those meetings so they are the most productive of the entire year. To help you finish strong, Log into imapMyTeam® before your next meeting and run the Manage Meetings report. A quick review will help make sure you understand what you can do to make sure your final meetings help you close out with no loose ends. This report is designed to make sure you are not overusing your strength to the point of being counter-productive.
 
Time is short; get the best out of each person on the team and successfully get to the December 31^st finish line with imapMyTeam® helping you along the way. Finish Strong!

Thanks-Giving

“I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks”

From William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

In what has become a Tuesday Tip Tradition, the tip of Thanksgiving week focuses on gratitude.

As we wish you and your coworkers a Thanksgiving filled with abundance and bright moments, it’s fitting to reflect on the things we are most grateful for at work. At the top of the gratitude list are the diverse talents of our coworkers. Each colleague brings something different to help make your team, and ultimately your organization, thrive. Without their passion, strengths and commitment to reach your team’s success you would flounder.

Studies have established that when people take time to identify specific positive attributes in others or their actions, and take time to acknowledge them in some way, they tend to:

• Have a relative absence of stress and depression
• Make progress toward important personal goals
• Report higher levels of determination and energy

Use imapMyTeam® to make it easy to find and document positive attributes of your team members. Consider their contributions and how they add to the team’s overall success. Perhaps write down a few notes to solidify your appreciation. The gratitude you offer will benefit you as well as your colleagues.

We are grateful for the readers of Tuesday Tips and users of imapMyTeam®; thank you for being a reader. Thank you to those of you who have reached out with compliments and suggestions. We appreciate each and every one of you – without you there would be no us.

We hope you enjoy some time away from the demands of work and your return from the holiday comes with a renewed attitude of gratitude!


Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Martian Lessons in Leadership

I recently saw the movie The Martian and in addition to enjoying it thoroughly I thought it was filled with several great lessons in leadership.

Matt Damon plays Mark Whatney an astronaut/botanist who is stranded on Mars. He is left behind for dead and what follows is not just a great story of man’s survival instincts but how people can band together for a common cause.

We see that cooperation and collaboration throughout the movie, not to mention innovation, problem solving and communication lessons.

For Mark to survive the harsh landscape of Mars he needs to think out of the box. He systematically puts in a plan to address each of the issues that he faces. Once he has that plan he quickly takes action on it. From your imapMyTeam® Team Player Grid we would say that is being blue [strategy] before being red [taking action/speed].

When astronaut Whatney finally establishes communication with NASA the first questions he asks are about the crew (his team) and their reaction to him being alive. When NASA tells him his crew is not aware that he is alive it sets up a series of humorous events that reinforce the importance of communication. The lesson? – Communicate the truth, even if it is harsh – your team and employees expect it from you.

The crew of the Hermes- at their own peril- makes hard decisions and personal sacrifices to get Mark home safely. If you build a team like the crew at Hermes, you can pretty much bet that they will be as committed to your mission as this crew was to saving Mark.

You too can develop the same collaboration, foster communication, recognize diversity and respect and use others strengths with regular use of imapMyTeam®. 

Why transition is so hard (and what you need to know)

  

I recently returned from a board meeting and on the drive home my head was spinning. I had just participated in what had to have been the longest executive session in the history of the board- all because one person is retiring and a key information system is changing.

The system change is progressing well from a technical standpoint; the retirement has been on the horizon for 18 months. How difficult could it be? Very difficult it turns out.

The administrative arm of this organization is in upheaval and people report they are “miserable”. Why? Because the people involved in the system conversion do not like how it is changing roles and relationships. Jobs will be eliminated. And, at the same time, the retirement is creating a shuffling of duties among the remaining people who do not want to accept these newly assigned tasks and responsibilities.

The previous paragraph hints to the source of why transition is hard.

Many change/transitional efforts fail because people focus on the situational business issues of the change and forget to manage the strong behavioral issues that emerge due to the change.

There is a lot of behavioral angst involved in change because change means loss. Before you begin something new you have to end what used to be. Before we learn a new way, we need to unlearn the old way. If the organizational structure is flattened the loss could be your next promotion to the tier just flattened. There could be mourning for the loss of good friends and colleagues if there is a need to downsize. If there is a reorganization, relationships are jumbled; people you used to trust and rely on may not work with you any longer.

Changes of any sort, even those fully justified by economics, market conditions and the like, finally succeed, or fail on the basis of whether the people affected choose to do something differently.

People are highly reluctant to do things differently and make change – even when it is highly necessary unless there is some sort of personal ‘win’ involved in the change. Those ‘wins’ need to be in alignment with their internal motivational need.

How do you let go of the old way; navigate the tricky time between the old ways to the new ways efficiently – support the behavioral aspects of the transitions, not just the business aspects.

One way is to understand the stress people feel during these changes. imapMyTeam® provides great insight to the way changes cause stress when the methodology being used to manage the change is not meeting the person’s need.  It will also give you suggestions on how to manage your way through these times of transition so you have a higher likelihood of success.

Conversational Intelligence

You just can’t put a three way prong plug directly into a two way outlet.  You can, however, if you add an adapter that modifies the socket to accept the plug. That is an import lesson that can be applied to conversation.

Last week our Tuesday Tip focused on the importance of EQ (Emotional Intelligence). Today we will explore the power of conversation and conversational intelligence.

Conversations are an essential interaction in business. Often, conversations occur daily with the same people and, if you’ve mastered that relationship, you ‘plug in’ to each other easily.  There are times though that conversations involve someone we don’t talk with often but with whom the communication is no less important – how well are you two really plugged in?

Conversation happens in real time and offers instant feedback to both parties. That feedback can serve as your guide to understanding if the conversation is going well or not. Conversational intelligence is the ability to recognize and effectively respond in real time to the person you are engaged with.

To promote conversational intelligence we need to learn how to frame the communication in ways that the receivers will be open to hearing our message. This is especially important when the conversation has the potential to be a difficult one.  It is vital for you to get those critical spoken messages right in order to avoid mis-communication and its consequences.  If I somehow force my three prong into that socket I risk overloading it and invite something negative to happen which, at its worst, could be a complete system failure.

You (and your counterpart in the conversation) are more vulnerable to reacting poorly when the conversation triggers your stress behavior and causes you to make ‘mistakes’ (Overload. Failure.) This could actually push you further away from what you really want – a solution to the issue that you are both satisfied with.

One of the most frequently run reports in imapMyTeam® is the How to Talk report. With good reason!

The How To Talk report is the adapter that allows my 3 plug cord to adapt to your 2 hole socket and properly connect us to power up for results.

That report is foundational to relationships and when its guidelines are followed sets you on the accurate path to have successful conversations of all types with others on your team and beyond. 

Emotional Intelligence as a Career Strategy

“I didn’t realize that, Oh my, I can fix that!”

I have heard that more than once over the years when I point out how someone’s behavior creates an unintentional clash with someone else’s motivational need.

Your ability and willingness to manage yourself, and successfully manage others, has been consistently shown by research to have a positive impact on meeting organizational goals and objectives. This ability is called ‘EQ’, or emotional intelligence.

It is said that more than 85% of people who are failing in their role are doing so because of a lack of ‘EQ’ not technical or hard skills.

Lack of EQ shows up many ways. Failure to communicate, poor collaboration, inability to get along with teammates, unwillingness to resolve disagreements, isolation of critical business partners, creating a climate of conflict – I’m sure you could name more. A deficiency of EQ has an impact on others that is nonproductive and creates barriers to individual and team success.

EQ issues don’t always lead to termination, but it can be argued they often lead to career stagnation. It is extremely difficult to advance your career if you cannot effectively manage yourself and your relationships.

Decades of research point to emotional intelligence as the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. In a recent study, a well-known firm tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills, and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full 58% of success in all types of jobs. Additionally a resounding 90% of top performers scored high in EQ and on average those individuals earned $29,000 more than their lower EQ peers. WOW!

imapMyTeam®, while not EQ training, does give you an EQ edge.

It helps you understand what others expect from you in various situations and often imapMyTeam prescribes what you need to do for or with others. Awareness improves - EQ skyrockets. So will your career.

Contents Under Pressure

I was cleaning out my garage; making room to store summer things and purging items that have been stockpiled too long.

I came across a few old, forgotten aerosol cans that read ‘contents under pressure’ - while I deliberated what I needed to do to safely dispose those cans, I  thought about how much pressure people feel these days.

I wondered – if people had a warning label about their reaction to pressure what would it say? “Danger- explodes under pressure!” or maybe “Caution – deflates when pressured.”

Those warning labels, if they existed, might say a lot of different things since the causes of pressure, and our reaction to it are so very different. What is universal is that the pressure we feel is very real to us.

Pressure causes a disturbance in our human performance system.

Inability to handle pressure can be perceived to be a weakness, but being under pressure is common. Sometimes it is even encouraged.  Some leaders believe that using pressure to push employees to rise to the occasion is a sound practice. Without debating if it is or not, the more important question is - can you manage yourself out of the counterproductive behavior that comes from the pressure? Can you ‘reset’ your performance system?

With imapMyTeam® you can.  We designed a specific report to increase people’s awareness of pressure. It begins by describing how the pressure is affecting you, but perhaps most importantly- prescribes how you can take steps to counter that disturbance and succeed.

The report is called ‘Succeed Under Pressure.’ If it has been a while since you reviewed it, you should revisit it. Feeling pressure? By all means, login and get your report now.

Can I Have More Than 8 seconds, Please

Another week; another startling study.

This is not a trick question -Who possesses greater focus, you or a goldfish?

A recent study calculates that the average human will likely ‘swim’ away from this Tuesday Tip in 8 seconds – and of course if you do, you miss the most important part of the story.

Yes, we now register an attention span of 8 seconds, down from approximately 12 seconds in 2000. Microsoft says that is a product of the digital age and a byproduct of the mobile internet.  A goldfish by the way, clocks in at 9 seconds.

How does imapMyTeam® figure into this?

Your time is precious. You want information and answers fast. imapMyTeam delivers fast. You will likely be able to login, find the report you need and quickly read a descriptive or prescriptive phrase in about 60 -90 seconds, 120 seconds tops. Ok, maybe as long as 180 seconds.

That is fast, but not 8 seconds fast!

We need you to lend us (You will need to invest) a little more than 8 seconds of your time, and we will provide a healthy return on your investment. As in less time wasted on conflict, miscommunication, misunderstandings, and other things that bog down the progress you need to make. More time to do the important things that contribute to your success. Even if you choose to do those things 8 seconds at a time, give imapMyTeam® more than 8 seconds of your attention and we will deliver results.

Corporate Coxswain

The etymology of the word coxswain is interesting. The literal meaning is "boat servant." 

Yet many people first think of the coxswain as the person in charge of the boat, barking out instructions to the crew, not as a ‘servant.’

Sure the coxswain controls the boat’s steering, speed and timing during practice and races and makes sure the boat is tracking an efficient course to minimize the distance rowed. However they are also responsible to train, encourage and motivate the crew and they are held responsible for the safety of the crew.  A coxswain is there to serve the rowers of the boat.

Being in the boat, the coxswain has a feel for what the crew needs and a good view of technical errors. The coxswain needs to diagnose problems into appropriate corrective action. Quickly and efficiently.

As a leader, manager or coach, just like the coxswain, you need to have all of the people in the same boat rowing in the same direction. You need to steer a course that leads to success. You need to encourage, motivate and correct. Quickly and efficiently.

Hopefully everyone in your boat is rowing in the same direction. In business it doesn’t always feel that way. Rowing boats are designed for speed, not maneuverability, so steering requires effort. Businesses prefer speed too; maneuvering quickly to adjust to competition takes effort and its toll on the crew.

As one of your company’s corporate coxswains, you have a great tool to help maneuver the crew and keep them encouraged and motivated. You can even make sure they are “safe” by meeting their varied motivational needs.  This will keep your crew out of their stress reactions that will get them off course and swamp the team boat.

That tool is imapMyTeam®.

The reward for their effort? The winning crew at a regatta often throws their Coxswain into the water. For most coxswains, being thrown in is the perfect end to a perfect day.

Corporate coxswains and imapMyTeam® users will never get thrown in the water. You can decide if that is a good or bad thing.

‘Say It Ain’t So, Joe’ – The Onboarding ‘Scandal’

In 1919 the Chicago White Sox were involved in a scandal of throwing the World Series. Legend has it that after the Grand Jury testimony regarding Shoeless Joe Jackson’s involvement, a bewildered young boy grabbed Shoeless Joe’s sleeve and implored of him to ‘say it ain’t so, Joe.’

I had that same reaction to a recent article in Chief Learning Officer (CLO) magazine about onboarding. Say it ain’t so!

Companies that are spending months and months searching for talent – at great cost – are short changing onboarding training once the employee is hired. A recent study by Mindflash  revealed the following:

Average time spent on corporate onboarding, including necessary skills training:

1979      100 Hours

1995      10 Hours
2015      30 Minutes


The author of the CLO article believes companies should shift their strategy to recruit for attitude and train for skill. Why – because schools curriculum's cannot keep pace with the change of what businesses require. Business would be better suited to focus on getting the right soft skills and do their own skill training to business need.

The Association for Talent Development agrees. They believe business should prioritize soft skills, interactive or people skills, because a new hires attitude and willingness to manage their midset or themselves is a better predictor of long term performance success than hard skills.

Regardless of where you stand in this debate, imapMyTeam® is a tool that helps you keep focused on the necessity of soft skills to get work done and delivers that information to you on a “just in time” basis.  

For you to be able to effectively support an employee throughout the onboarding process you need to have a relationship first. Building trust makes it easier to be effective in teaching/developing that person. You will find imapMyTeam® is also an excellent onboarding and trust building tool you can use collaboratively with others.

Haven’t thought to use imapMyTeam in a while? Say it ain’t so! 

Are You Relationship Lean?

The core idea of lean is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply stated; lean means creating more value for customers using fewer resources.  A lean organization understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste.

What does that have to do with your relationships? Everything.

The quality of the problem solving in a group is directly linked to the quality of the teamwork. Teamwork means being able to solve problems across functional boundaries – it’s the key to successful process improvement. In order to establish the right environment for process improvement, leaders must constantly develop teamwork by teaching individuals to work with their colleagues across functional silos.

One of the eight wastes in lean is underutilizing people’s skills and abilities – their talent. What you understand as an imapMyTeam® user is that to get the best performance from someone we need to tend to their motivational needs. Needs unmet cause a reactive behavior that we refer to as ‘stress.’

That stress behavior is a person’s ineffective style of dealing with relationships or tasks. When exhibiting this behavior people are less productive (and unhappy with themselves).

To foster teamwork, to get the best out of each individual, to avoid wasting their talent you need to pay attention to others needs. That will ‘lean’ the relationship and help you achieve your goals. imapMyTeam® reports are largely written for others’ needs. They give you a model of how to interact with another person in the most effective way possible. Relationship Lean!

Lean is not a tactic or a cost reduction program, but a way of thinking and acting for an entire organization – imapMyTeam® is a tool that adds value to that process.

Back to Business -Back to School -Be in the Zone!

 Labor Day Weekend has long been associated with our final fling with summer before turning our attention back to school and business.

With the holiday being so late this year the back to school part is in full force, but this weekend most of us probably squeezed out every last drop of summer we could. Now that we’re ready to put away the bathing suits and flip flops, it’s time to diagram our personal strategy for the 2015 stretch run.

Whether September brings us new challenges, or we’re looking for a strong finish to an existing project; or both- it’s time to get focused, get organized, and get busy.

Where to begin? Let’s face it, just getting refocused after summer can be challenging for many so, a great place to start is by rallying around what is easy for you. It’s time for you to get back into your personal optimal performance zone.

When you are working on the things you love and enjoy most, and you are able to use the strengths that come to you naturally, you’ll be on the way to doing your best work right out of the gate. The same thing is true for your direct reports.

For you and your team to ‘get focused, get organized, and get busy,’ use imapMyTeam to help you figure it out quickly.

Go to your “Team Player” report. Once you navigate there, go to the last page which is the summary. It recaps what you need, and when those needs are met, how you can leverage both your passions and strengths to be back in an optimal ‘performance zone’ in no time.

A Strong Finish for Conversations

It seems like there is always a high profile court case in the news. During the course of the trial there is of course witness testimony, evidence entered, arguments of counsel and rulings by the presiding judge. All of these pieces are critical to the case and part of “due process.” However, often the success or failure of the case hinges on the strength of the closing arguments. In jury trials, finishing strong and leaving a favorable impression with the jury is critical.

In order to be successful, we often need to engage with others every day. Our conversations are not always critical, but how we close them may represent opportunities for us to leave a favorable impression. Here are some simple closing phrases you can use to let others know they are important and you are engaged:

• Do you have anything else we should discuss today?
• Is there a good time for us to talk again soon?
• Thanks for sharing these issues/thoughts/concerns/perspectives with me
• What else can I do to support you?
• Thanks for your patience.
• I appreciate your attention to detail.
• I’m glad we had a chance to meet/talk.

Clearly these phrases are not new to anyone, but we often don’t take time to finish our conversations well. imapMyTeam ® is designed to remind us when we consciously manage our approach, it improves communication, strengthens relationships and helps us be more effective. Look to the reports in imapMyTeam® to gain valuable insights to those you may be having conversations with this week.

Take the time to create a strong finish to your conversations in order to leave a favorable impression, encourage others and contribute to your overall success.

Assess Your Business Relationships

“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people” Theodore Roosevelt

Relationships matter.  Let’s take a minute to remember why. 

We know from research and experience that getting relationships right builds trust, a key ingredient to successful endeavors. Also the quality of relationships has a direct correlation to the ability of individuals and teams to perform. Finally we know when times are tough; relationships are often the glue that holds us together.

In a high-speed, immediate response, 24-7 business world it could be very easy to begin to take your relationships for granted – but if you do – you do so at your own peril. The truth is great relationships take care and feeding. Given the previous statements on the importance of solid business relationships it may be helpful to occasionally assess our most important relationships.

It may be called imapMyTeam®, but it also could be called imapMyRelationships.

It is specifically designed to give you the perspective you need to quickly evaluate your approach to building and maintaining relationships and to ensure you are connecting with others in a way that promotes authenticity, trust and durability.

 

Take advantage of the ‘Building Relationships Snapshot’ report.  It is a two page report that captures:  

1)      On the first page the way you interact one to one with others; how you interact in groups and teams and how you demonstrate your care to others. 

2)      On the second page is what is essential for you to get from others in those same three areas.

Sometimes the way we interact (first page) is different than what we expect (second page). Sometimes it is exactly the same. imapMyTeam® sorts that out for you.

What to do next.

Print this report and ask one or more of your key colleagues to do the same then schedule a few minutes for all of you to talk about it. This investment of a few minutes of your time goes a long way to building that ‘formula of success’ that Theodore Roosevelt spoke of.

Keeping People Safe in Feedback Mode

Feedback. Many people dread giving or receiving feedback because they have had so many bad experiences over the course of their careers. When feedback goes badly, people draw the wrong lessons from the experience. We can’t be open to things that we anticipate will cause some level of pain.

Yet, I recall the famous quote by Ken Blanchard “feedback is the breakfast of champions”.

How then do we reconcile the need to give and receive constant feedback and keep it safe? And to turn that feedback into our breakfast so we can succeed and become ‘champions’?

The bottom line is feedback is going to hurt when you do not frame it in a way that matches the receivers’ internal motivational expectations. So the predictor of the misery is not in the message itself, but how you deliver the message and how that message is filtered by the receivers’ unique expectations.

For example some people just need you to be as candid and direct as possible. Any attempts by you at subtlety or nibbling at the edges of the matter rather than getting to the heart of the issue are going to miss the mark and the message will fail to register.

Conversely, another person may need you to patiently listen and understand why they did what they did and needs to know that in this whole process that you continue to respect them despite these differences. They often need criticism balanced with praise, and subtlety works with them. They can read between the lines and get your message.

Can you give feedback both ways? Do you know who needs the first example and who needs the second? Do you know who needs a balance of the two perhaps? When you do it makes it safe for the other person – they can better accept the content of the feedback.

It is important for you to get this right – if you get it wrong, people will focus on the intent of your feedback rather than the content of the feedback.

Reading others ‘How to Talk To’ and ‘What to Avoid’ reports in imapMyTeam® is a failsafe way for you to prepare to give any sort of feedback to others. It will help you frame these important discussions in a way to make them succeed, makes the other person capable of receiving the message and keeping them safe in the process.

Coming Soon:
A new report to imapMyTeam® currently titled ‘Performance Conversations’ will be released soon. That report will give you even more comprehensive insight to the process of giving performance related feedback. 

Building Trust is Job #1

I just came across a short history of slogans used by the American auto industry. When I read the very popular Ford Motor Company slogan that was launched in the early 1980’s - “Quality is Job 1” – I was inspired to write this Tuesday Tip. For 17 years Ford used Quality is Job 1 to counter the perceived gap in quality between Japanese and American (Ford) made cars.

That slogan made me think about how I would adopt it for today’s business where relationships are so essential to success.  Building Trust is Job 1 is what I came up with.

The very first job of a leader is to inspire and build trust.

Trust is the single most essential element to our ability to deliver results. Certainly nothing extraordinary gets accomplished without trust.  Trust is integral to building high-performance because it enables people and the organization to work with the necessary energy to achieve great things.

If you believe in the old adage that a ‘good defense is the best offense’ then it is trust that is a defense against dysfunctional relationships and teams.

To continuously improve your leadership, you must continuously improve trust.

imapMyTeam has a report titled Trust Requirements to help you understand what you need to do to build trust with another person.  

Run that report today. Get people together to talk about what that report means to them and then make sure you as a leader of a team, or you as a teammate, pay attention to what others say is most important to them from the report. Act on it and you will be rewarded.

The Power of Encouragement

 “A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success.”

                                                                                                                                -Unknown

The epic story told in The Lord of the Rings trilogy is filled with examples of encouragement. Consider this conversation between Frodo and Gandalf in an early scene from The Fellowship of the Ring:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

When we think about encouraging or motivating others we often think about what to say – words ARE important, but encouragement is more than just words.  In the scene above, Gandalf’s response is designed to give Frodo vision beyond himself and a sense of great purpose.  With this insight Frodo is able to commit himself completely to a monumental journey.  (Anyone familiar with this story knows this is not the only time Gandalf will need to encourage Frodo along the way to ultimate victory).

Remaining competitive and successful in today’s marketplace is an ongoing struggle – whatever you’re grappling with, it helps to hear words of encouragement that remind us that we all take our share of knocks, but the best things in life come through persistence.

Individual and/or team success requires a certain level of motivation and an appropriate type of encouragement.  The more people receive the kind of support they need along the way, the easier it is for them to stay focused on the task or journey and see it through to completion.

imapMyTeam® is your key understanding just the right way to encourage others when they need it most.  Refer to the attached grid to see the best way to encourage your employees or teammates. Identify what quadrant their circle symbol falls in and then frame your encouragement  accordingly.

In addition to successful outcomes, relationships are strengthened and unshakable trust established.

The supportive characters in Mr. Frodo’s journey offered boundless encouragement and as a band of unlikely heroes, they were not only victorious, but enriched by their relationships. 

Minimize Message Misfires

Tick, Tick, Tick… the minutes pass like hours and your attention has expired too.
Tick, Tick, Tick… some people seem to be getting this more than I am, why?
Tick, Tick, Tick… note to self – get someone else to present next time.

We have all been there. Someone presents to us, or we present to them and it goes over flat. You wonder why.

Or,

10 minutes into the report or presentation you think – wow they missed the mark. You are frustrated. It’s not that you can’t follow the content; it is the way it is put together that makes it difficult to get to what you need. You think you would have done it differently.

Have you been there? Sure have; we all have and here is why.

The simple truth is what attracts and interests us as people is varied. We each have a unique filter of what we let in or block out. That filter will:

1) influence the way we are inclined to transmit messages and
2 ) dictate the way we prefer to receive others messages to us.

When your communication filters are in sync with those you are communicating with, the message clicks naturally. While that natural connection is great; more often than not we have differences that cloud the communication creating a potential message misfire.

For example if you really love data and prepare a detailed number-centric communication to someone who is not interested in data two things will have happened. One is that your message will not be as well received as you want and you wasted your time putting all of that detail together for that person.
Another example is written communication. If you love to write you may be tempted to write quite a bit -use too many words (in their opinion) and you will have created a document that other person will unlikely read in its entirety. A high level summary would have sufficed. Once again, the message is muddled and you spent time on something you did not need to.

We have added a new report to imapMyTeam® called Your Communication Blind Spots that will give you insight to the areas you may overuse, or underuse because it is something YOU like or don’t like, rather than what the other person prefers. Ideally, you are creating the presentation or communication to what appeals to them, not you.

Use the insights from Your Communication Blind Spots when you are getting ready to select a method to communicate with others for a more on-target and readily accepted message.


Save time, prevent message misfires, get others onboard quickly. You have to like that message!